"They're not all dead, Robert," his wife Brenda said from the seat she was sitting in. As the only woman in the room, she stood out, but no one ever doubted her right to be here. She was just as tough as her husband, and at times like this, perhaps the only person he would listen to.

  "They're not?" Robert said, turning to look at her.

  "They've been able to scry a hundred and thirty or so of them."

  "So why doesn't somebody go get them?"

  "Because they're in the mountains, moving west over rough terrain, well away from any roads. Then of course, there's what happened at the council house while most of the men were off on this harebrained stunt."

  Robert grumbled at that. "Don't remind me! All the Sacramento lycans taken away by one of those damn lion's raiding parties, leaving us with six of our members now in the hospital, two of those in a coma, and one dead! What in the hell was Smith thinking up there?"

  "Tobias, the Vestibulum leader, was humiliated by the lion's people when they took his lycans. Apparently all the rest were equally incensed. The Ascendants were already planning on a strike and were more than willing to ally for the purposes of stopping the slave rebellion in Reno once and for all.

  "So Smith figured he'd bring up the rear and bring enough firepower and manpower to mop up after the Vestibulum and the Ascendants had softened them up for him. He brought all his biggest guns and almost as many people as the other two had committed, in case of foul play."

  Brenda shook her head. "I've talked to his wife and the two senior members who stayed behind. They all left at midnight, over five hundred of them, and that was it. It wasn't until they were raided early this morning that they started to suspect something had gone wrong."

  "What about the Vestibulum? The Ascendance?" Robert asked.

  Atticus Cortland spoke up, "No one from the Vestibulum has returned, and they sent every man eighteen and over that they had who could still fight. The Ascendance sent over a hundred; none of them have come back, either."

  "What happened when they got to Reno?"

  "They never got to Reno," Jim Hicks said. "I called up Richard Sorother, and he sent men out to comb the city and even skirt the area around the compound that lion set up on the outskirts of town. Everything's normal, no sign of combat, nothing. Best anyone can tell, they never made it."

  "I think we should ask our resident expert, Rob," Brenda said.

  "I don't trust him," Robert said with a shake of his head. "He showed up here last week claiming to know all about this 'kid' from Reno."

  "Well, Sorother did vouch for him."

  "Sorother's married to his daughter; of course he'd vouch for him."

  "Still, what have we got to lose?"

  Robert gave a heavy sigh of defeat. "Fine. Go get him."

  Brenda got up and left the room, coming back almost immediately with Sam Wilston. Robert wasn't surprised; Brenda always thought ahead, if she thought she might need somebody, they'd be waiting on the other side of the door until called.

  "Robert," Sam smiled and gave a small bow, "I understand there's been a bit of a problem?"

  "Your lion-boy hit Sacramento last night."

  "That's not all I've heard," Sam said with a slight frown. "Something about an attack force that's gone missing?"

  "First I want to hear your opinion on the attack on our people in Sacramento."

  Sam spread his hands. "The kid thinks he's the messiah of the lycans, and unfortunately for us, they believe him."

  "And why would they do that?"

  "Because werelions are rare. I talked to one of the scholars over at the Eruditio council on the other side of town before I showed up here. I've also talked to our own scholars. None have ever been captured, at least that we know of, and they're rare, incredibly rare it seems.

  "This kid got bit by one when Harkins sent his hired thugs to bring him in and peel him like an onion."

  "And why would Harkins do that?" Robert asked.

  "Twelve years ago, the kid's father, probably the most brilliant enchanter who ever lived, invented a way to protect lycans from silver. We didn't know he'd been successful at the time, but word got out about what he was trying to do, and Harkins had him assassinated.

  "Unfortunately, he hired an old-school mob hitman who was very big on the 'no women and children' thing. So the kid had a geas put on him, and the mom swore never to get involved in magic again. Then Harkins got an itch and thought the kid's dad had managed to leave him a legacy for when he turned twenty-one, so he broke the oath he'd sworn to the conclave.

  "Anyway, to make a long story short, the kid got bit, I guess breaking the oath destroyed the geas, and the kid got his hands on his old man's notes as well as a working model of the device.

  "The kid then decided to finish his old man's work and started freeing the lycans."

  "Isn't that a lot for a kid to take on?" Keith asked.

  "He's just a figurehead. The real brains of the outfit are on the lycan fellowship. They've got a crafty old wolf bitch by the name of Claudia, and even our friendly sheriff from Vegas shows up to help out from time to time."

  Robert heard Atticus swear softly at the mention of Sheriff Channing.

  "When they hit us in Reno, the kid was incensed with Roger for killing some wolves and sending us to steal his father's notes; he was so distracted I was able to slip out the back without being seen."

  "Yes, about that," Robert said, "I heard Roger was rather upset with you? Something about you trying to take the notes he'd sent you to steal for himself?"

  Sam smiled. "I was hoping to unlock the secrets myself, kill the kid, replace Roger, and take over Reno myself."

  Robert nodded thoughtfully. "That's what I was led to believe. Not a very compelling reason for me to trust you now, is it?"

  "Roger was planning to use the secrets in the book to kill you, Robert. He'd been lusting after your seat for years now, and I find it hard to believe you didn't know that."

  Sam glanced over at Brenda when he said it and saw her give a small nod of confirmation.

  "So," Sam continued, "yes, I was going to kill Roger, and that perverted bastard Charles, as well. And before you condemn me, let me remind you that when Roger caught me, rather than punish me or kill me, he had me whip my daughters. He was going to have me whip them to death."

  Sam looked over at Brenda. "Excuse me for saying this, but I didn't really care about my daughters all that much. Richard Sorother offered Roger his loyalty and then some for my oldest, but Roger passed on that because he was more interested in some sick perverted fantasy than even his own power.

  "If I'd let him use that book, he wouldn't have used it for the betterment of the council. He and Charles would have used it to fulfill their own perverted desires. Hell, I'm fairly certain that Richard killed Charles rather than let that monster take over and claimed the lion did it to cover himself.

  "So yes, I'm a self-centered opportunist, just like everyone else in this room. But I never put myself before the Council of Gradatim. Not once, not ever. I wanted Roger gone because he was a blight on all of us.

  "I know the lion, or rather his 'people', hit Sacramento. They took everybody, with minimal loss of life on our side, and left. That's his method. He doesn't want a war with us because he knows he'll lose. Now why don't you tell me about the rest of it?"

  Robert looked at Sam; the man looked as confident as ever, even after admitting that killing his own daughters wouldn't have mattered a damn to him. It took balls to admit to something like that, and Robert had been keeping an eye on Roger McConnell for the last sixteen years, ever since he took charge of the Reno chapter. He hadn't trusted that perverted bastard an inch. The stories of the things he and his friend had gotten up to were not the kind to engender trust; he was definitely the worst of them.

  "Over two hundred magic uses from our Sacramento Council, led by the entire Vestibulum council and a large percentage of the Ascendance Council, drove to Reno last night to put an end to your lion-boy and his slave rebellion.

  "They never arrived."

  Sam nodded. "Sounds about par for the course these days."

  "So what do you think happened?"

  "Treachery would be my first and biggest guess. I think we can all agree the kid doesn't have the numbers to take on five hundred magic users who were armed and ready for a war, right?"

  Sam looked around the room; they were all looking thoughtful.

  "The kid's lucky, I'll give you that, and he appears to know something about magic. But it's not him, it's his allies, it's the others telling him what to do. As soon as the kid loses his temper, he acts rashly and abruptly. He loses all control.

  "My guess is, either the Ascendance members who were there took the opportunity to get a little payback for what happened to their people in Reno, and our people got caught up in the fight, or Sapientia heard through their spies about the attack and they set up an ambush."

  "Why would Sapientia want to do that?" Brenda asked.

  "Power. Pure and simple. They're riding this kid back into the limelight. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were the real power behind his little throne. They sided with the kid early on in the fight, pulling out of the local conclave, plus the Reno Sapientia Council's niece is now one of the kid's women."

  "Wait, what?" Robert said, looking shocked.

  "You didn't know that?" Sam said, looking around at the others, who were all shaking their heads.

  "Huh. His daughter is a complete slut. One of those tantric witches that goes around leaching off all the magic users in the area. Well, I guess she likes getting freaky with the animals, because she hooked up with him and has been with him ever since."

  Robert stopped pacing a moment and thought about what Sam had just told him.

  "You're dismissed, but don't leave the compound without telling someone where you're going. I think we're going to need your input once we decide on a plan."

  Sam smiled and nodded. He was back! He had them on the hook. All he needed to do now was help them solve this little problem and somewhere, possibly even here, a council seat would open up for him once more.

  "I'll do that, Robert," Sam said, and giving another small bow, he left the room, closing the door behind him.

  "You know what I'm thinking?" Robert said to the others while looking at the door Sam had just gone through.

  "That he's still a self-serving bastard?" Brenda snorted.

  "Oh, he's all that, alright!" Robert laughed. "But no. Who told everyone about the Vestibulum attack on the Ascendance?"

  "Sapientia," Brenda replied.

  "What if they were lying? What if the lycans did it, and Sapientia just covered for them to incite everyone against the Vestibulum so they could make their own power play? What if this isn't a slave rebellion at all, but just window dressing for their return to power?"

  "I find it hard to believe that Sapientia could set all that up," Keith said.

  "I'm not saying that they did," Robert admitted, "but what if it just fell into their laps? They offer to back the lycan movement for independence, supply the kid with money, magic, intelligence, and leadership advice. It would explain where he's getting all those items from. Sapientia has a lot of skilled magic users, and they've always been close to Eruditio.

  "I've met Troy, the man who runs the Sapientia in Reno. He's a cagey old fox with a lot of experience. It's not the kind of thing I'd put past him. I wouldn't be surprised if he set his niece on the kid in an attempt to gain some control over him.

  "After all, look at what happened. The Vestibulum launched an attack on the Sacramento Sapientia council to wipe them out. Kind of strange to just happen out of the blue, right? Unless it was payback for what happen in Reno.

  "The attack then fails because of Sapientia's lycan allies, so Tobias launches an attack on Reno and immediately gets slapped down? And who ends up in power in both Reno and Sacramento?"

  "I don't know," Brenda said, "it still sounds a little too perfect for me."

  "But it has that annoying ring of truth to it," Atticus said, shaking his head. "Even if that's not the way it happened, I agree with Sam that the kid is probably just a figurehead. Which leads to the question of just who is pulling the strings?"

  Robert nodded. "Just who indeed?"

  #

  Gary's stomach grumbled as he walked. He'd been carrying Dave for the last hour. His other friend, Steve, had followed him when he picked Dave up and started walking, and the two of them had been passing Dave back and forth every hour or so.

  Dave himself had passed out, but he wasn't dead, and for all that Gary was no longer happy about having to carry him, with all the dead they'd left behind, he'd rather be stuck carrying his friend than burying him.

  "What's that?" Steve said, pointing up ahead.

  "Looks like boxes," Gary said with a grunt. Only a few people were in front of them; most were strung out behind, either carrying wounded, injured themselves, tired, or just too shell shocked to do anything but follow somebody else.

  "Hey! It's food!" one of the people who'd gotten there first yelled.

  "Shit," Gary swore.

  "What?" Steve said. "It's food!"

  "Yeah, and why the hell are they feeding us?"

  "Umm…"

  "Exactly," Gary said. "Look, run up there, grab enough food for both of us, and something for Dave if he should wake up, then keep going another couple hundred yards, then wait for me to catch up. We can eat while we walk."

  "Okay," Steve said and, picking up his pace, he got to the food quickly. Gary, however got passed by dozens of people who, having heard the cry of 'food', ran up to the piled boxes, grabbed as much as they could carry, then ran off a couple of yards to sit down and eat what they'd gotten. By the time he got to the pile of boxes, it looked like a third had been grabbed already, though there were only twenty people there, at most.

  "Gary! Take a load off!" one of the other Gradatim members, Tim, said with a laugh.

  "Take my advice, Tim," Gary said as he slowly plodded by with Dave on his back. "Take only what you need, and get the hell out of here."

  "Why? We got here first!"

  "Yeah, we out number 'em!" Jack, another member, said.

  "Not anymore we don't, and if you guys can't recognize a trap, well, fuck you. I gotta get Dave to a hospital before he dies. But I'll be sure to tell your mothers you died from stupidity!"

  Gary didn't even bother to look back and see what they were doing, he could see Steve up ahead, and Steve was eating as he was waiting for Gary to catch up.

  "Any of them following us?" Gary asked when he finally caught up with Steve.

  "About half of them. Tim, that asshole, is still stuffing his face."

  "Figures. Once you're done eating, would you mind carrying Dave for a while so I can eat too?"

  "Yeah, not a problem. And oh, wow, looks like the Ass-ends are starting to catch up, and from the way they're tearing into everything, I don't think the Vestibules are gonna have anything to eat when they get there."

  "Oh, fuck, they didn't," Gary swore.

  "They didn't what?"

  "They only left enough food for us to fight over. Shit, we better pick up the pace before the rest get here. I don't want to be around for what happens next!"

  William got to the food while there was still a good bit of it left. It was all in silver packages, and grabbing two of them, he sat down next to some of the other Ascendance members who were already eating.

  Ripping the bag open, there were two food bars inside, so he stuck one in his mouth and chewed. By the time he'd finished the first bar, almost all the boxes of food were empty, but there were still people coming up to them.

  It wasn't much longer before the boxes were empty, but there were still people showing up, and when they didn't find anything, they immediately started to look around. Those who were with the Ascendance came over to stand near where William was sitting. With a sigh, he ripped open the second bag and, breaking the two bars in half, he shared it with four of them.

  Those who weren't with the Ascendance went over to the people who were sitting by themselves, or in smaller groups.

  "Give me that," an older man William had never seen before said to a young man sitting down eating.

  "Fuck you, old man, I got here first!"

  The older man pointed at the younger man and cast a spell, splitting the young man's head open and killing him.

  "No, fuck…" the older man was suddenly hit with a barrage of spells by two other young men, and he fell over, quite dead.

  "Shield spells!" William yelled and cast a defensive spell as a sudden free-for-all erupted around them.

  "Kill the Vestis! They got us into this!" someone yelled, and just like that, everyone turned on the stragglers, who William assumed were the Vestis, and started hitting them with all sorts of attacks; someone cast a fireball that killed four of them on the spot.

  A few of them turned and tried to run, but people were now throwing rocks at them, having spent what little mana they'd gotten back since last night.

  "Hold off," William hissed, "save your magic!"

  Several of the others sitting with him looked at him a little strangely, but they appeared to follow his order anyway.

  As the others seemed to be out of magic now, the stragglers who had run away turned back around and come back.

  "Get up!" William said as he scrambled to his own feet. "Close ranks! Stop anyone who comes near us!"

  Several of the stragglers came at William's group, but when the first one got hit with an ice bolt and backed off, screaming, the rest turned to the other smaller groups and singletons and attacked them again. Unfortunately for the stragglers, there really wasn't any food left at all, as everyone had started to eat faster when the fighting started, and the stragglers were all the weakest and the slowest.

  It was survival of the fittest, played out right before William's eyes. By the time the fight was over, there were over thirty dead bodies on the ground, and most of the survivors were already moving on, heading west once more.